Why invest in Applicant Tracking System

10 Features That Make an ATS a Lucrative Investment

This is a guest post by Kelly Barcelos.

Every talent management department needs one important tool —an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). It makes recruitment process easy and helps you bring in the best candidates to work with. Investing in this must-have recruitment tool will benefit your business in more ways than one.

Here are some features you must look out for before buying one:

Social Media Integration

An ATS should make it easy for recruiters to post jobs on social media and job boards. With a social media integrated ATS, you can post about job vacancies on popular social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. You can even add candidates from these channels into your database. Social media integration allows you to get the vacancies in front of as many people as possible apart from identifying, attracting, engaging and hiring talented candidates with ease.

Mobile Friendly

Almost 45% of jobseekers use their mobile to search for jobs at least once a day. Most even apply via mobile. It would be a grave mistake not to tap into this trend. An increased use of mobile technology will allow exposure to more candidates. An ATS that is mobile-friendly will ensure that you can target a huge chunk of candidates who search for jobs on their mobile.

Syncing Calendar with Interview Scheduling

Offer your candidates the option of booking their own interviews. By doing this, you will not only put control into candidates’ hands but also save the time of hiring managers and interview panelists from mundane tasks like scheduling interviews. The interview panelists can connect their calendars to the ATS and hiring managers can generate a link to send to candidates. Since the updates occur in real-time, there won’t be an event of interviews clashing with each other or any other calendar event.

Cloud Integration

The workforce is enjoying an increased mobility in almost every corner of the world. Thanks to the cloud, people can now work from any location, even when they are on-the-go. The feature of cloud integration in applicant tracking systems allows users to access the system from any device or platform with a steady internet connection. It offers an intuitive user interface and a better integration along with robust analytics. The talent acquisition suite makes hiring easier, efficient and more productive.

Employee Referral Portal

The talent acquisition software must have an employee referral portal, where the current workers can connect to their social media accounts and relay job openings to family, friends and acquaintances with ease. This helps increase employee participation and bring in talented candidate pool that otherwise could be inaccessible to the company. When an employee referral applies, you can track their progress through the ATS. You can even notify the referring workers as the changes occur. Some applicant tracking systems even track the number of referrals individual employees bring into the company, thus helping you decide and calculate the referral bonuses and rewards.

Customized Application Forms

Job applications can be tedious and annoying, especially when candidates have to fill details to questions that are irrelevant to their department. If the application forms are complex and filled with pointless questions, the candidates will give up and apply someplace else. An ATS allows you to have customized application forms that can make the hiring process seamless and efficient. The hiring managers will have less and more focused data to go through, enabling them to make better decisions faster.

Branding

Look for ATS that allows you to have options around branding customization, which include color schemes, fonts and even logos. This will help in achieving increased brand consistency from the ATS, website and social media. A strong branding helps in securing your company’s long-term recruiting needs and develop a strong employee value proposition.

Easy Collaboration

ATS offers seamless collaboration between different departments of the company. If you are using a software that can only perform a part of the hiring process, the recruiter has follow up manually with other stakeholders — which is a time-consuming task. A good ATS has all stakeholders including external vendors, partners and decision makers collaborate seamlessly.

Assessment Platform

The build-in assessment feature of the ATS helps in improving the quality of candidates that get shortlisted for the interview stage. You can assess the candidates’ attitude, their interest level, technical skills through online assessment which can help in saving time and the effort of a face to face interview.

Meaningful metrics

Candidates may lose interest in joining your company or form a negative opinion if there are delays during the hiring process. An ATS provides meaningful metrics such as recruiter performance, Time-to-Hire and other relevant data that can help you identify the areas where time and resources are being wasted, and plan efficient hiring processes.

Win the hiring game with this incredible tool in your corner. Invest in an ATS today and you can race ahead in the competition by hiring the best possible candidates.

Author Bio: Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR and is responsible for leading Jobsoid’s content and social media team. When Kelly is not building campaigns, she is busy creating content and preparing PR topics. She started with Jobsoid as a social media strategist and eventually took over the entire digital marketing team with her innovative approach and technical expertise.